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Fan. 1, 1883] 
NAT ORE 
will propose ‘‘that the Committee for Elementary Plane Geo- 
metry be instructed to publish Part 1 of the Plane Geometry, 
and to take such steps as they may deem advisable to secure its 
recognition as a basis of instruction and examination in geo- 
metry.” It will be in the recollection of some of our readers 
that the object of the Association was extended at the last annual 
meeting, so as to include the effecting of improvements in the 
teaching of elementary mathematics and mathematical physics. 
This extension has met with great approval, and the novelty of 
this year’s meeting will be the reading of three papers : (1) ‘‘ The 
Teaching of Elementary Mechanics,” by W. H. Besant, F.R.S. 
(2) ‘‘ The Basis of Statics,” by Prof. H. Lamb, of the Adelaide 
University. (Prof. Lamb is of the opinion that the true and 
proper basis of statics is to be sought for in the principles of 
linear and angular momentum). (3) ‘‘ Notes on the Teachings 
of Dynamics,’’ by Prof. Minchin. The reading of the papers will 
be followed by a discussion, in which it is hoped that Prof. G. 
Carey Foster, F.R.S., Prof. Minchin, and others will take part. The 
papers will be read at the afternoon meeting which begins at 2 p.m. 
The two present honorary secretaries will resign office; Mr. 
Levett, in consequence of the pressing necessity of his other 
duties, and Mr. Tucker, in consequence of the state of his 
health, which compels him to withdraw from some of his 
engazements ; both gentlemen, however, hope to remain on the 
council and act as amici curi@ to their successors in office. 
THE well-deserved honour of C.1.E. has been conferred upon 
Surgeon-Major James Edward Tierney Aitchison (Bengal Army), 
F.L.S., who did such excellent botanical work with Sir 
Frederick Roberts’s force in the Kuram Valley during the 
Afghan war. 
GEOoLoGiIsTs will regret to hear that one of the most promising 
of the younger members of their number, Mr. E. B. Tawney, 
of the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge, died suddenly at 
Mentone on the 3oth ult. 
THE death is announced, on December 22 last, of Dr. Carl 
Hornstein, professor of theoretical and practical astronomy, and 
director of the observatory in the Carl Ferdinands University, 
Prag, at the age of fifty-eight years. 
‘THE thirty-sixth annual general meeting of the Institution of 
Mechanical Engineers will be held on Thursday, January 25, 
and Friday, January 26, at 25, Great George Street, Westmins- 
ter. The chair will be taken by the president, Perey G. B. 
Westmacott, Esq., at half-past seven p.m. on each evening. 
The following papers will be read and discussed :—Report on 
the hardening of steel, by Prof. F. A. Abel, C.B., F.R.S, of 
Woolwich ; on the molecular rigidity of tempered steel, by 
Prof. D. E. Hughes, F.R.S., of London; on the working of 
blast furnaces, with special reference to the analysis of the 
escaping gases, by Mr. Charles Cochrane, of Stourbridge, vice- 
president ; on the St. Gothard tunnel, by Herr E. Wendelstein, 
of Lucerne ; on the strength of shafting when exposed both to 
torsion and end-thrust, by Prof. A. G. Greenhill, of Woolwich. 
Tue old female Hippopotamus (Adfela) presented to the 
Zoological Society in 1853 by the then Viceroy of Egypt, died 
in the Gardens on the 16th ult., after having for some time past 
exhibited manifest signs of old age. Her mate (Odaysch) died 
in 1877, after having lived twenty-seven years in the Gardens. 
It is thus evident that about thirty years is the extreme limit of 
Hippopotamine existence, as it is not at all likely (judging from 
the state of the teeth and bones) that either of these animals 
would have been able to support existence so long in its native 
wilds, as under the favourable circumstances in which it lived 
in the RKegent’s Park. 
Dr. Buastus of Brunswick has recently shown that the fossil 
remains of a species of Souslik, found in various parts of 
247 
Northern Germany, which are usually attributed to Spermophilus 
altaicus, really belong to S. rufescens, Keys. et Bl. It is 
probable that the cave-bones from the Mendip Hills, upon which 
Dr, Falconer established his SP, exythrogunoides (Pal. Mem., ii., 
P- 453), are really of the same species, and that this Rodent, 
now driven far east into the steppes of Orenburgh (like other 
members of the Steppe-fauna), formerly extended all over 
Northern Europe, and even into the British Islands. 
RECENTLY, our readers may remember, Miss Baxter of Bal- 
gavies, sister of Sir David Baxter, and aunt of the Right Hon. 
W. E. Baxter, and the late Dr. Baxter, Procurator-Fiscal of 
Dundee, gave jointly 150,000/. for the endowment and erection 
of a college in Dundee. Buildings have been acquired, profes- 
sors appointed, and the work of the college will soon be begun, 
Miss Baxter has just given another 10,000/. to provide a labora- 
tory, and the trustees of the late Dr. Baxter also 10,000/. to 
found a Chair of Law. 
As the late M. Gambetta was a member of the Society of 
Dissection, an autopsy of his body was made, The weight of 
his brain was found to be 1100 grams; M. Mathias Duval, 
Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, found the structure of 
the brain to be very fine, and the third convolution, which M, 
Broca assuciates with the speechifying faculty, to be remarkably 
developed. 
THE project of the United States for establishing an 
universal meridian has been sent to the Paris Academy of 
Sciences for approval. It is expected that Great Britain may 
object to this measure, and it has been proposed that, in con- 
sideration of the services rendered to geography by England, tha! 
the Greeawich meridian should be selected as the start-poin 
for time and longitude. 
Our Paris Correspondent writes that the second Paris inun 
dation is developing its ravages with peculiarities which proy« 
that modern engineers do not pay sufficient attention to the 
effects of their works on the 7¢yzme of the stream they profess tc 
regulate. The level of the Seine is just as high at Charenton as 
it was in 1876, although it is 20 centimetres less elevated at Pont 
Royal, where it reaches only 7 metres. The reason of this dif- 
ference is that an ignorant Municipal Council authorised the 
building of a bridge which crosses the river obliquely, and a 
new quay at Bercy, where in som: places the dimensions of 
the bed of the stream have been diminished by not less 
than 55 metres. If the rains continue it is feared that one of 
the Paris bridges, the Invalides, will be carried away, which will 
produce real disaster. 
Pror. BORNSTEIN, of Berlin, has brought out a small work 
on meteorology under the title of ‘‘ Regen oder Sonnenschein.” 
In conjunction with Prof. Laudolt he has also nearly completed 
an important work (‘** Physikalisch-Chemische Vabellen”) con- 
taining all the most reliable determination of constants sequired 
in chemical and physical work, some of which will be published 
in a collected form for the first time. 
Mr. J. P. McEWEN, of Hong Kong, under date November 
28, 1882, sends us some observations of the comet, taken on the 
morning of the 27th :—26d. 15h. 43m. 17s. wean time at place, 
the distance from Sirius measured by sextant was 34° 32’; 26d. 
15h. 50m. 30s. mean time at place, the distance from Procyon 
was 39° 31’; longitude in time, 7h. 36m. 40s. A line drawn 
from the small brightest star in the lower part of the sword- 
scabbard of Orion through Sirius almost exactly passed through 
the nucleus of the comet ; the apparent length of the tail was 
about twice that of Orion’s belt. It was getting very indistinct, 
and on the 27th, owing to the bright moonlight, was more so 
than if the night had been dark and clear. Mr. McEwen has 
seen the comet several times, an] when at its greatest brilliancy, 
